Casen's Gotcha Day - October 1st, 2013

After an entire year of adoptions we are finally done with all the red tape, paperwork, follow up visits and court appearances. We have been extremely blessed to not experience any problems with any of our adoptions, but the process is still a little grueling. We were once again surrounded by family as we stood before a judge and officially added the fifth Gordon to our little tribe. Hooray for being done with adoptions... at least for a long while! 

The boys all needed a little snack. Thank goodness there were plenty of Grandma's around to help them out.

Pictures of all five of us are always a crap shoot. You get what ya get these days.

Thankful for how these three love my three. We couldn't do life without their help and we for sure wouldn't have survived the last year without their endless sacrifices and love. SO thankful that I have the family I do.

DiDi and her Gordon boys. We're thankful that Chris's family also loves our fellas so much!

Our last little Gotcha.

Tuck had plenty to tell the Judge. He's a hoot! But here we are. All five Gordon's. What a great place to be!
We are so thankful for the three boys God chose for our family to love. I can't imagine life without any of them. We have been exceedingly, abundantly blessed.  

Moving On

So we made the big move last month. We left the house we became a family in. This was an extremely emotional process for me. I was surprised how often the tears came as I packed away memories of babies and accomplishments and transitions that the walls of our home for the last five years held. I unprepared. Excited for what was coming next, but sad to leave this sweet home where so much life had happened. Here are some things I want to remember. Some of my favorite walls. 

This was Tucker's room. Even though we only had three weeks to get ready for his arrival I painted this wall for his nursery. I loved how fun it turned out and spent time before he was born just looking at, dreaming of the boy who'd live in that room. He has not disappointed. 

When we found out Bennett and Casen would be joining our family we didn't know if Casen would be a boy or a girl so I wanted to go with something neutral just in case a little lady would share this room with her big brother. I also loved all the chevrons that cluttered my Pinterest feed so that's what we ended up with for Ben. 

The youngest couldn't be neglected with a fun wall all his own. These were the hardest to paint, but I loved how they turned out. 

These are my Africa Baskets and they have hung in every house I've lived in since college. I got them the summer I lived in Zambia and I still love them. This is probably my favorite configuration of them. They hung in our living room in Sayre and reminded me daily to pray for those who live on the other side of the world. 

Things started to get real.

It's like the Friends finale all over again!

We left our mark. I wanted to leave a note behind because we will never be the same because of the time that 2 Darla Drive provided shelter and safe harbor for our growing family.

When we arrived in Greenfield we were welcomed immediately by note from our kids at church. Pretty special. 

The boys enjoyed the new "toys" that now littered our new house as I unpacked. 

Here's a picture of a newly painted and decorated wall in our new house.  I  like how things are shaping up. We're excited to see what life has in store for us in our new home.

The Move

Let me begin by stating the obvious... moving with small children is dumb. hard. frustrating. stupid. Pretty much any not fun adjective you wanna throw in there applies. This was our first move since adding the three little people and man do they come with lots of accessories! Added packing. Added loading. Lots of added logistics.
But we did it! I sent the little blessings to my Mom's for three days so I could pack. And that I did. I packed like a crazy woman. From sun up till well past sun down for three solid days I packed myself silly and got all I could done and left out only the essentials. Well what I thought were essentials, but it turns out I'm not so good at packing in advance because we spent the next nearly two weeks trying to string together with what we had to make things work without unpacking a single box. Packing was hard this time. Full of emotions and just being overwhelmed by the shear amount of stuff we've accumulated in five years. When we moved into our house in Sayre I thought we'd never fill it up, but add three people and it happened without a whole lot of effort or realization from me.
We downsized houses in this move so that also made things a little tricky. As I packed I also purged. I didn't think I'd have enough stuff to have a garage sale because we had a massive one last year to raise adoption money, but turns out I had plenty to do another sale. So we squeezed that into the move as well. Who wants to move junk you know you don't want/need anymore? We had a great turn out and sold all our big stuff plus made enough money to buy new living room furniture for the first time in our lives. New furniture!
Furniture shopping was exciting and fun at first. After the initial trip it became overwhelming and a little stressful. Too many choices and lots of money. Anyway after a trip to a couple of Mom & Pop stores and one to the big guys we ran back to Main street and bought a really great navy couch and love seat along with a new khaki recliner with our garage sale money. It was fun to get to get new stuff that wasn't hand me downs and will be wonderful for this phase of life.
Nearly two weeks after my packing frenzy we sent the boys back to Purcell and loaded up a U-Haul and trailer (and by we I mean Chris and some guys from FBC Sayre) and left 2 Darla Drive behind. This was a super emotional process for me. Leaving our church and home of five years was tough. I cried a lot more then I expected to. We became a family in that house. Tucker and Bennett took first steps there. Chris and I transitioned from a couple to parents under that roof. Not to mention saying goodbye our neighbors, friends and church family. It was all awful!
They had us stand before the church on our last Sunday and people came by to hug us and stuff. The second lady in line was Dora Jean. She's a spunky 85 year old lady who wears shorts no matter the weather and gives us gum every single week. She is who I hope I age into. I mean she's a hoot! Anyway she was crying and sent me into a weeping mess for the rest of the procession. Sayre was a wonderful place for us and we were so well loved there. Saying good bye is always hard I think, but when it's been so good it's even worse. The three girls I was closest to there and I didn't even say good-bye. We just couldn't. I just told them I loved them and see ya later. I couldn't do the whole thing with them.
We arrived in Greenfield to a house full of helpers who unloaded our stuff, brought us dinner and breakfast, put our beds together and just enveloped us with love from the moment we stepped out of our cars. We have been just overwhelmed by how people are already loving us here! Who knew this pastor's deal would be so sweet? Chris has preached two Sundays in our new place and he's done great. We're thankful to move from one good place to another. Watching Chris in his new role further confirms this is where we're supposed to be. It makes the sadness, Tucker's questions and the disruption to our routines worth it.
I'm still trying to make our new place feel like home. The to do list is still really long. But this move has made me decide I don't want to do all of this again anytime soon so I hope the people here really like us! Moving is for the birds!!!
Let me also say we could NOT have moved without the overwhelming help of my Mom and sister. They kept the boys so we could be productive and to make the transition easier on all five of us! They were troopers and I'm once again reminded how much I have to be thankful for when it comes to my family. I seriously wouldn't want to/couldn't do life without them!!!